


Palette Cleansers

by JazzRaft



Series: Festive Food Fluffs [10]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Established Relationship, Festivals, Fluff, Food, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 21:39:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14819361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: The Festival of Fire was considered by many to be the quintessential celebration of Galahdian culture. It was the loudest, brightest, and biggest feast of light and food across the islands. Between the sultry summer heat and the blazing seasonal spices, Galahd was afire whether they lit their torches or not.





	Palette Cleansers

The Festival of Fire was considered by many to be the quintessential celebration of Galahdian culture. It was the loudest, brightest, and biggest feast of light and food across the islands. Between the sultry summer heat and the blazing seasonal spices, Galahd was afire whether they lit their torches or not.

She’d heard someone say once that they couldn’t tell the difference from one Galahdian festival to the next. Each one seemed to celebrate the “same, tired old things”: food, family, and gracious praises to their islands’ “dead gods.”

Well, whoever held that opinion clearly had never been invited to sit down and eat with them, she thought with a wry huff. Probably couldn’t take the heat. Nor, did she think, they had very much experience with preparing a party menu from behind a kitchen counter. Too many people claimed to be “professional critics” as an excuse for not nicking their fingers with a kitchen knife. However would they be able to type out their unsolicited critiques then?

“That tuna must have insulted you pretty bad to deserve such punishment,” Nyx teased.

“I didn’t like the look it gave me. Ogling a lady all through the market like that. So crass.”

Nyx snorted, collecting a number of bottles and jars from the fridge – beers and sauces and containers full of condiments. Outside, the kaleidoscope of colorful paper lanterns and garlands of wildflowers danced like a rainbow mosaic beneath the orange cast of torchlight. Music beat from the radio, pacing the lively murmur of conversation across the sandy yard.

“If you have an extra hand, take these crabs with you!” She wiggled her elbow towards the full clay pot, bursting up steam from beneath the crease of the lid.

“Right, errr…”

Nyx juggled the load of dinner table accoutrements already taking up space between both arms. Between glances, she caught the pink flash of his tongue pressed against his lip, determined to puzzle through how he could fit more than he could carry. She rolled her eyes and laughed under her breath. If Nyx could minimize the amount of trips he had to make from kitchen to buffet, he would totally sacrifice his own safety just to impress the dinner guests with his amazing balancing skills.

“I’ll take this one.”

Noctis slipped into the kitchen on the ends of Nyx’s shadow, ghosting the tips of his fingers along his back to let him know where he was. He fit between the idle pockets of chaos in the Ulric house like he was born to it, translating his movements to turned backs with an experience often reserved for island elders – and even then, rarely exercised. He maneuvered through the rush of the kitchen with polite reserve, catching onto cues usually lost beneath the din and rattle of questions and commands and persistent conversation preferably delegated to _outside of the kitchen._

“My hero,” Nyx sighed in exaggerated dreaminess.

“Someone’s got to cover for you while you’re on vacation.”

Noctis was getting more and more used to the Ulric kitchen with each secretive visit from the Crown City. While the Festival of Fire set the islands of Galahd aflame, the warmth Mrs. Ulric felt as she observed the Prince’s familiar routes was much less wild than the twisting dances and roaring bonfires across the islands tonight. It was a much more tender type of hearth-fire.

“Don’t burn yourself,” she advised, craning her neck towards two potholders hanging from hooks. “I don’t want to be lynched for scalding off the Crown Prince’s fingers.”

“You and your son, always so worried about treason.”

Nevertheless, he followed her word, carefully hefting the pot of simmering crabs outside to the table. As Mrs. Ulric scraped the raw tuna into her serving bowl, she caught the crooked smirk on her son’s face from the corner of her eye. It was infectious.

“And I thought the fish was bad with its ogling,” she scolded.

“I’m not _ogling._ ”

“No, of course not. Just gazing towards the distance with puppy love abandon. Maybe if your eyes were a little higher, it wouldn’t be ogling.”

Nyx’s face turned bright red, muttering an aghast “ _Ma!_ ” before ducking his head and hurrying out the door. She laughed to herself in the empty kitchen, tossing together the components of her fish salad to serve. They were going to need the cooldown after that crab.

Her yard was full of friends and family, from afar and from just next door. It had grown even bigger in the year since Nyx had introduced her to his paramour.

Sometimes, she felt like her head was still reeling, looking at Noctis when his head was turned in dumb awe that her rapscallion of a son had spirited the Crown Prince of Lucis to her humble door. She remembered thinking that she shouldn’t be shocked. Where Nyx went, trouble always greeted him with a grin to match his own.

But then Noctis talked, quiet and polite, attentive to the conversation, listening more than he spoke, and suddenly, it wasn’t nearly so surprising. He was a down-to-earth, well-educated, well-mannered young man. Shy to start, but hardly the reclusive and brooding youth she sometimes saw advertised on TV. He was gracious and interested in everything the islands had to offer. He was uncritical and unbridled for curiosity.

He was totally normal. And she knew the first day they visited her humble cottage off the coast that he loved her son as much as he loved him back.

It was almost cruel not to give him an additional warning about the crab pot. It wasn’t called the Festival of Fire for its love of torches after all.

Noctis tried everything on the menu, taking every piece of praise the Galahdian guests had to offer about a dish and agreeing to it himself after one bite. She wasn’t sure if he was just being polite, but the smile on his face didn’t give a single hint of dissatisfaction for his meal away. He had sesame skewers and spicy grilled steak, flavored breads to mop up fire red sauces, cracked open the shells of every crustacean with the rabid abandon of any Galahdian, setting aside his courtly decorum without a second breath.

The Cygillan crab soup was the crown of fire on an already heated feast. One sip of the broth had him rushing for the nearest glass of whatever iced drink was on the table, eyes bulging from his head and cheeks russet red. Nyx chuckled beside him, hand between his shoulders to console the fiery onslaught.

“Shiva, please have frozen mercy on me!” Noctis gasped after guzzling a tall glass of iced tea. “That was delicious,” he rushed to say when he caught Mrs. Ulric fighting off a smile, afraid to insult her cooking. “But Six, how do you survive this every year?”

“By always having a balancing force.” She slid him the bowl of fish salad. “Welcoming the cold grip of death would defeat the whole purpose of the day.”

Noctis huffed out a laugh, lips tinged red with the heat. He was grateful for the relief, taking a generous helping of the colorful salad to his plate. Dark pink tuna coated in sesame seeds, bright yellow chunks of mango, green avocado, purple cabbage. Crisp and light and cool, dressed in a simple citrus dressing. It wasn’t the star of the table, hardly, but it was her secret weapon of much needed healing. Her guests never knew how grateful they would be until they tried the crab.

“For your first taste, I think your delicate Lucian palate handled it pretty well,” Nyx teased. “You didn’t spontaneously combust.”

“Probably would be less embarrassing. Could burn away my shame.”

“It’s a rite of passage, and you made it through. Wear the red as a symbol of pride.”

“Is my face really that red?”

Noctis searched for a reflective surface, feigning self-consciousness. His cheeks were flushed, jewels of sweat along his brow, and he laughed as he shook out the wet film from his eyes. “Damn, that really packs a punch.”

“In Galahd, our food needs to be as hot as our blood, lest the flame of our spirits die out,” she told him.

“How do you think I stay looking this hot?”

Noctis smacked Nyx’s shoulder, another shade of red rising on his cheeks as Nyx hugged him to his side. His mother knew him too well. It definitely wasn’t the food that kept his smile so bright.


End file.
